


Rainy Sunday Afternoon

by esme_green



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Courtship, Gen, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-30
Updated: 2009-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esme_green/pseuds/esme_green
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're not truly an intergalactic time traveller until...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainy Sunday Afternoon

The Doctor squeezed his upper torso farther into the nether regions under the TARDIS console and wished he had longer arms. Shouldn't complain, though. This regeneration was thinner and he could now reach several places he hadn't been able to in years.

Of course, there was always the possibility of getting stuck, or of not being able to reach his tools once he'd jimmied his body into place, but the chances of those things happening were negligible.

Or not. Negligible, that is.

Well, that was easily fixed. "Rose!"

No answer.

"Rose!"

Still nothing. Right. She wasn't there.

In some ways, they had a perfect relationship. If he needed to park somewhere and disappear under the console to make repairs, she wouldn't hang about bothering him, waiting to be entertained. She'd tap him for some local currency and salient facts, then disappear herself to explore.

She'd be back in an hour or two. No problem.

Well. Could he wriggle out without hurting himself too badly? Possibly, with patience. Might be best to try that, really, since Rose's method of assistance would likely be to grab his feet and haul.

Ouch. It was going to take a while. He hadn't exactly planned on working on that set of panels. It had just happened as he moved farther and farther through the crawl space, finding things to fine tune. Now he was trying to recall exactly what he'd done over the last twenty minutes, then do exactly the same thing again except in reverse order. Move left foot there, push. Move right elbow here, then right hand there, tug.

Annoying. Time-consuming. Less embarrassing, though, because he was alone. Ten minutes of careful movement later he reached his tools again. Grabbing the sonic screwdriver and a few other things, he shifted and headed back in, more carefully this time.

******

Rose rubbed her hands up and down her arms in an effort to stay warm and tried to hold on to her patience. The two officials--not police, from what she could tell, but individuals with authority, nonetheless--were carefully going over her credentials and she was making sure to concentrate on the psychic paper properly.

It was times like these when she wished the Doctor was around. Not that she was terribly worried; as instructed, she'd been careful, considerate, and respectful as she'd wandered through the alien city, always asking permission before touching anything or entering buildings. The only thing to cause suspicion was her humanoid appearance--all "pink and yellow", as the Doctor had once put it. All the polite respect in the world couldn't change her from a pink and yellow humanoid into a five-legged, greenish-gray walking starfish.

Naturally, people would be suspicious, to say nothing of curious. So she concentrated on the psychic paper, smiled at the officials, and tried not to think about the clammy, foggy air that was penetrating her clothing and making goosebumps rise on her skin.

The Doctor would have talked them out of this by now. Probably. Or he might have started a war, or landed them in jail. Even money, really. What was required was patience, and she had plenty of time to burn. The Doctor would be buried in a maze of integrated circuits for hours.

The officials handed her back the psychic paper and she thanked them politely, then asked for directions to the city market. Once they heard she wanted to spend some money, she was swiftly accommodated. Pocketing the psychic paper, she headed deeper into the city.

******

The Doctor was stuck again. To be fair, he wasn't in the same place as last time. He'd been more careful, paid a bit more attention, but honestly, once he'd seen the state of the dusterion fabricator, which probably hadn't been serviced in over a century, how could he not inch forward, duck under a panel, and stretch around the resilvetron circuits with the sonic screwdriver to give it a bit of a going over?

"Rose?"

Nothing.

"Rose!"

Still nothing. Not that he wouldn't have noticed if she'd come back. Probably. It was best to check, anyway.

Back to the routine. Inch back, move head this way, left hand this way, right knee nudge here.

Ouch.

******

She was showing her credentials again, smiling at these slightly less friendly officials, concentrating on the psychic paper, and freezing her arse off.

The shopping was enjoyable, apart from the questioning. Starfish--or whatever they were called, that was the one bit of data she hadn't retained from the Doctor's quick briefing--did fantastic weaving, probably because they had five arms--all right, tentacles--to accomplish it. Pretty fabrics, complicated scarves and wraps that accommodated multiple shoulders, and even a few things that looked like they might be warm.

She was going to buy one of those warm things, even if she did have only two arms, as soon as these officials let her by.

Which they shortly did. Again, Rose thanked them politely, waited for them to leave, then headed into the shop where the warm wraps were being sold.

The place was empty of customers, and the starfish-salesperson was quite gracious. "Humanoid!" it said. "We most never find you here!"

Rose smiled, hesitant. "Yes. I've noticed there aren't many of us around."

"Very attractive, yes?" said the salesperson. "Unique? Rare, too. Very rare."

"Um, thank you?" Rose said, not sure if the salesperson was talking about her or the fabrics. She pointed at a colourful, warm-looking scarf. "That looks beautiful."

"Oh!" the salesperson exclaimed. "Not usual pick, that. Special."

"Special?"

"Special occasions only. You try." One tentacled arm reached for the rack, and suddenly she was being gracefully draped with it, three other tentacles gently tugging it into place.

She sighed with relief. "Oh, it's so warm!"

"Too warm. We only wear for special occasion. Rest of time it too much bother."

That made sense. They were probably acclimatized to the cool, damp air, preferred it. "Well, I think it's lovely," Rose said. "Even if I am the wrong shape for it."

The salesperson gestured with a few of its tentacles. "It still look good."

"How much?" Rose paid the amount without trying to barter.

"You use, yes?" the salesperson asked, tucking the money away.

"Yes, I'm going to wear it right now!"

"Oh!" The salesperson was surprised. "It special occasion today?"

"Not yet." Rose grinned. "Who knows?"

"You do not have friend?"

"Not here right now. It's fine, though."

"No, no! I get you partner. Keep you company."

"It's not necessary, really," Rose protested.

"Yes! Sibling's offspring is very nice. You like! Promise! And you wear special occasion scarf."

"Sibling's offspring?" Rose asked weakly. "Like, your nephew? Niece?"

"Yes! One moment, please." The salesperson tapped the communicator behind the counter.

"Um..."

******

The Doctor had had enough. This was the fifth tight spot he'd squeezed into--the slimmer torso, he'd decided, was a pitfall--and he was fed up with having to wriggle away from delicate circuitry inch by painful inch. He was dusty and exhausted, and the TARDIS was just going to have to be happy with what he'd managed to accomplish so far.

In fact, he had the distinct feeling that the TARDIS was amused, which wasn't helping his own mood very much. So he was getting out, as fast as possible, and then he was going to have a shower, clean his suit, and maybe have a nice cup of tea with Rose in the library whilst complaining about it.

Hand here for leverage, slide legs here, and nudge gently...there. The lower half of his torso was finally in the crawl space below the TARDIS that was actually designed for humanoids to go creeping about in. Next stops: shower, laundry, Rose.

And then the TARDIS doors slammed open, then shut, and he heard Rose coming up the ramp at speed.

"Doctor? Get us out of here!"

Scrambling out the rest of the way, he popped his head up to look at her. She was drenched from head to foot and seemed both furious and anxious at the same time.

"Problems?" he asked, hoisting himself out of the crawl space. "Angry mob behind you?"

"Let's go!"

She was being so insistent that he complied, flipping the switches to put the TARDIS back into the vortex. "Will we ever be able to return?" he asked, amused.

"Not me." She shook her wet hair. "There are some seriously disappointed starfish down there. You might be okay."

Chuckling, he corrected her. "They're not starfish, they're Satarfissella."

"Starfish," Rose said firmly.

He grinned wider, and then became aware of the smell. "You stink!"

"I know."

"Like...fish?" He sniffed. "Yes, fish. You smell like a fish market."

"I know!" But she didn't say anything more, and that was significant.

He let the silence stretch for a moment. "You're going to have to tell me eventually."

"I don't think I will." Her chin lifted.

"Oh, come on!" he coaxed. "How many stories have I told you to while away the long winter evenings? You have to share. It's the rules!"

"There's no winter on the TARDIS, and no, I don't think this is in the rules."

"It's domestic! It's like, 'Honey, I'm home!' 'Oh, hello dear, how was your...'" He trailed off, realizing, finally what she was wearing.

He started to laugh. Then pointed. "Oh. OH. That is brilliant."

"I'm taking a shower." She stomped out of the console room.

"The smell. The smell!" The next realization hit and he laughed harder as he followed her. "Oh, you have to tell me! How did you ever--"

"I'm not saying a thing."

The Doctor realized he was practically skipping behind her, and didn't care.

"What are you doing?" Rose paused as at the door to the bathroom.

"I'm following you."

"I'm taking a shower."

"I need a shower too," he said innocently, gesturing at his suit. "Got all dusty under the console."

"Well, you can wait your turn."

She definitely wasn't impressed, but he couldn't help himself. "Oh, come on." His grin widened. "I haven't showered with somebody else's wife in ages."

Whirling, she jabbed a finger into his chest. "And you're not going to anytime soon, mate!"

He held up his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. But I'm coming in part way." Following her in, he went to the medicine cabinet and rummaged around until he found the right bottle. "You're going to need to use this. Those bipinnarial larvae are tenacious--we need to make sure that none of them have actually started to gestate on your skin."

Rose froze and turned to him. "What?"

Catching the edge of her authentic Satarfissellan wedding scarf, he began unwrapping her. "They dumped a big bucket of smelly water over you, right?"

"Yeah." She looked up at him, her mouth open.

He continued to peel the wet fabric from her body, but she made no move to help. "You said they look like giant walking starfish, and you're partly right. Actually, they're a peculiar mix of bilateral and radial symmetry that--"

"Doctor."

"Sorry." Carefully draping the scarf over the towel bar, he turned back and reached for the zipper of her hoodie. "Satarfissellans reproduce in a number of ways, including asexually and through free-spawning. Because you're not biologically compatible, they would do the fertilizing ahead of time."

"Oh, ugh." She shrugged out of the hoodie and let him pull her t-shirt over her head. Her bra was soaked through, and she stepped behind the shower curtain, out of sight, while she finished undressing. "So that was a bucket of--of fertilized eggs?"

"Technically early-stage larvae." He bent to gather up the clothes she tossed out from behind the curtain.

"Whose?" she asked over the sound of the shower starting. "The nephew's? The shopkeeper's? She was awfully insistent that I meet him..."

"Well, since they're hermaphroditic, your use of pronouns is arbitrary."

"So the nephew fertilized his...her own eggs?"

"They're efficient like that." The Doctor grabbed the bottle of disinfectant wash and stuck his arm past the shower curtain. "All right. Time to get you clean."

Rose took the bottle and uncapped it. "Ugh. It smells."

"It's a bit stronger than your strawberry-mango juicy fruit sensation body wash, I'll give you that." The Doctor grabbed a towel and wrapped her wet clothes in it. "But it will work to get rid of any larvae that might have found your skin a suitable substrate to latch on to." He thought for a second. "Don't forget to do your hair as well."

She stuck her head out from behind the curtain, clearly alarmed. "What if some went in my ears? Or up my nose?"

"Up your nose?" he teased, wiggling a finger towards her face.

She shrieked and disappeared behind the curtain. "Don't you dare!"

Laughing, he leaned back against the door frame. "Relax, Rose. You are far too warm inside for any of them to survive, assuming they could make their way past your ear wax or nose hair or enzyme-laden saliva..."

He heard her snort. "Disgusting and yet clinical, Doctor."

"I'm going to go do your laundry," he said, pushing away from the wall. "You owe me tea for this."

"Library, twenty minutes?" she called out.

"Done." He hesitated, but decided he couldn't help himself. "And then you can tell me how, in under four hours, you managed to end up married and nearly impregnated by a giant walking echinoderm."

She stuck her head out of the shower again. "That isn't really binding, is it?"

His face broke into a grin. "Only on that planet, and it only lasts until one of the partners dies. Well, dies or commits binary fission."

"So in a sense, as soon as we left that time period, it was annulled?"

His grin widened. "Why are you so worried? It's a badge of honour! You know, you're not truly an intergalactic time traveller until you've ended up accidentally married to an unsuspecting native."

"That's what you said about shagging an alien."

"What?"

"That I wouldn't truly be an intergalactic time traveller until I'd--"

"When did I say that?"

"Our first date."

"Ah." Time Lords didn't blush, he reminded himself. "We had chips!"

"And then some."

"I'll admit that as a chat up line it wasn't one of my best."

She shook her head fondly, then disappeared behind the shower curtain again. "Go. Laundry."

"Yes ma'am." Scooped up the bundle he'd made, he headed to the laundry. The wedding scarf was on top and he fingered its bright weave.

Making a decision, he pulled it out and washed it, quickly and carefully, in the sink, then put it in the dryer. By the time he put everything else on to wash, it would be dry.

Then he could take it to the library and wrap it around Rose himself.

 

 

 

 

END

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
